Wyrms in the Verse

Earthwyrms in the Serenity verse

Prophecies in The Black

The Importance of Being Nick Boots

13

APR/08

Well, we were filled to capacity with the Blue Sun crates, and that made the bird a might tricky on take-off, but still nothing compared to the over-capacity nonsense we did for that gorram mining company.

So, we’re off to some odd coordinates smack in the middle of the black to unload the Blue Sun crates, when Josh Chambers comes and interrupts my midday meal to show me he’d been tamperin’ with the cargo. I wonder how long he’s had the practice of tamperin’, and maybe the captain should know… but then I start to thinkin’ that the Captain prolly already knows. So, then I commence to wonderin’ why he’s trying to get ME involved in this, but I want no part of it. This kind of shenanigans would never be allowed on my pap’s ship, God rest his soul. But what’s done is done.

Some wood crates only got food cans innem, but that’s not so much what he was so all-fired interested in showing me. He showed me that some of the bigger gorram crates were filled with some kinda concrete, and that it had apparently been poured directly into the crates. Whoop-de-fuckin’-do. Deep pockt bigwigs at Blue Sun want to fill their crates with poured cement, well, that’s their problem if they don’t know they can send it more useful in its powdered form. Prolly some qingwa cao-de liumang pencil pusher what just had orders to send more concrete out to the black. Not my business until some hundan had to go lettin’ curiosity get his cat in our cargo bay, then try to rope ME into his paranoia.

Then he shows me some wires, embedded in the wood, leadin’ to tamper sensors. Ben tiansheng-de yidui rou! And he can’t even hack into them to un-trip them. Ben dan!

Best I want to do right then was just advise him how to possibly cover his intrusion, say with an accident with one of the mules. It’s impossible to un-break wood, and, well, these things DO happen sometimes.

His ‘accident’ looked almost convincing, but the sound of it brought some unwanted (but expected) attention. The Captain didn’t leave his quarters, but sent YoYo and Lo to investigate. I tried to convince YoYo that Joshua was trying to hook up some more hidden cameras, but she wasn’t buying that. I was dismissed, but thinking about it on my way back to the cockpit, I called down to the cargo bay to remind them that they’d need to fill out an accident report. That should be good enough to cover our collective asses. I hope.

I also hope Joshua never draws me into any of his crazy actions ever again, but who knows what the insane will do next? Shepherd Concorde made a right fine chili that night, but that’s not so crazy except that some of the ingredients were from a damaged Blue Sun can or something.

Oh, and speaking of crazy, the Captain has taken to wearing a blindfold lately. He wanted to try flying the ship blindfolded, but I secretly put the autopilot back on when he wasn’t paying attention.

Anyway, we made our way to the coordinates Blue Sun gave us, and if that don’t beat all but there is, in fact, a small asteroid there, just as promised. Trouble is, the thing is apparently painted all black, and some of the Last Resort’s sensors weren’t getting a signal reflected back from it. Despite all the hardship, I found the right place to land, and proceeded to do so with as much flair as I could manage for landing blind. (Hmmm, think the Captain may have been giving a prophecy?)

So, we’re there, but there’s no receiving crew to greet us, take their crates, and pay us. Captain calls us to arm-up, and see what’s doin’ inside. Meanwhile, he’s manning the cockpit still blindfolded yet. Mighty suspicious, though, to make the landing on the little black rock like we’re s’posed to, but nobody there to take the cargo.

We go in, and there’s no power at all until YoYo hooks the ship’s power into some of their systems. That works pretty well, we can use our juice to complete the delivery and be on our way. Well, we decide to poke around a bit first. Need someone to vouch that the goods have been delivered (mostly) intact. YoYo sends some electricity to the lift, and we make our way down into the building…There’s a weird, sulfur smell, enough for me to wear a paper filter mask, and it looks like there’s been some reavers on this rock, maybe about three weeks prior to our arrival. There’s been gunfight here, there’s plenty of blood, but no bodies. Same for most of the floors, until we got to a point where the elevator was blocked. Lo Wick and I basically rappelled down to the level where some secret laboratories were.

There were the usual office doors, but then there was a really big patch of poured concrete, just like what was in the crate that that whacko Chambers had shown me. All these prophetic folk have really got my neck hairs standin’ up, I’ll tell you. Anyway, we called for YoYo to send us down a drill with some concrete bits, Lo Wick drilled a good-sized hole, stuck some explosive innit, and BLAMMO! We’re in!

But what the Blue Bloody Buddha was in there that had Lo pissin’ down his leg? Zombies, that’s what.

Well, turned out that they were just people, all living, but in some sort of suspended animation, according to Doc Concorde. So, we gurneyed ‘em all back up to the ship, and I made sure we grabbed a roll of toilet paper for each of ‘em as we went. 200, in all, and all scientists. And right when I figured out which young science babe I’d like to stash away in my quarters and how to get her in there without raising suspicion, they all started waking up.

Maybe it’s just as well it worked this way. Once she woke up, she wasn’t much for talking to me. Kinda snooty.